Peek into the scatterbrained mind of one Chicago mom as she jots her experiences and thoughts as they pop into her head.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Me voy a casar

The meeting went well last night, although my ride got stuck in traffic after going to a jobsite and we were about 2 hours late. No big deal though, I managed to scrap a page while I was waiting…

Credits: Paper - Amy Teets, Font - Decker

We still made half of the technical presentation (we missed about an hour – a two hour long presentation! I’m glad we missed the first half!) and the important part – drinks and snackies! It was held at CEMEX, our competitors, CTCC (Center for Technology of Cement and Concrete). Not to be confused with the place I work at, CTC (Concrete Technology Center). It was a nice place! You can tell they are #1 here in Mexico – everything was top notch. The only down part was that I won a CEMEX water bottle at the raffle. Nice bottle, but bringing it to work would be like drinking Pepsi at a Coke plant. It’s just not right.

It was nice to practice my Spanish a bit more, also. Although I did manage to make some mistakes. We were talking about greetings, and I used a phrase with the word güey, which I thought meant “dude” or “man” as in, “What’s up, Man?” (“¿Qué onda güey?” is actually the example I used). Apparently it has a more negative & crude connotation to it that I wasn’t aware of. I mean, I hear it everywhere! Then I was told, yet again, that it’s a word I should use, because young ladies shouldn’t talk like that. UGH. That just makes steam come out of my ears. I can’t wait to get home to the US where I can be myself and talk and be as crude as I want and people won’t be appalled. That really bothers me here.

The other interesting mistake had to do with my excitement about spreading the news of my upcoming nuptials. I was telling people I was going to get married in March. Or so I thought. The phrase I was using, “Voy a casar” (casar is the verb To Marry) apparently sounds about the same as “Voy a cazar” – which means I am going hunting. As in killing deer and other small woodland creatures. Not exactly what I was trying to say. But, thanks to some friends who don’t mind laughing at me and then correcting me, I learned the appropriate saying, which is “Me voy a casar”, or “voy a casarme”. So now I know. And some people are still running around wondering why I am going hunting with my boyfriend in Chicago in March. Eh. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll probably never see them again anyway.